In short, is only bulding blocks with some option to pre-configure the base defaults (https://tailwindcss.com/docs/configuration) and pre-seed the theming (https://tailwindcss.com/docs/theme), if wanna get low level.
Is like functional programming: You get for "free" the higher-order functionality but left to you to decide what to do with the building blocks. You can totally make your own components ala bootstrap (https://tailwindcss.com/docs/extracting-components).
What this make interesting, is that you can do it at HALF.
For example, you can decide that "components" only are the shapes, but you must supply colors and dimensions. Or are colors and dimensions, but your must supply the shape (etc: As building block, you can mix-match).
---- P.D: I'm building a niche ecommerce platform and TailwindCSS is far easier to theme than bootstrap, by a long shoot. Specially because in my case, my customers only care for "colors" than overall shapes, so I can hand-code the site visual structure and left colors and cosmetics open.
Why tailwind and say not Bootstrap?
And can you elaborate on the text heavy pages?
> Why tailwind and say not Bootstrap?
From the un-researched outside i don't understand how much of Bootstrap is pure CSS and how much depends on JS. I know when i've used Bootstrap in the past i saw a lot of JS, which turns me off. I primarily want a light CSS framework.
This is coupled with the fact that UI executed logic is handled by WASM in my use case (Rust). So the thought of decoupling JS puts up mental friction that Tailwind doesn't give me the impression of.
Sidenote, i've tried some of the Bootstrap ecosystem in the past and it felt rather messy. I imagine this is partly due to the success of the Bootstrap ecosystem, but it felt messy enough that i'd probably only be interested in a streamlined CSS only Bootstrap offering.
> And can you elaborate on the text heavy pages?
I guess i just mean pages where i want to see more dense information, like Wikipedia, rather than more sparse information which is common these days.
An easy comparison is New vs Old Reddit. A lot of design i see, even from Tailwind, organizes UIs like New Reddit. That might be nice for landing pages and customer navigation - but i loathe it for data. When i'm viewing long for data i want to see things both look good and be densely packed - within reason. New Reddit takes high volume information (lots of links/descriptions/comments) and makes navigating it ~5x less efficient.
I'm a backend Dev who plans to buy Tailwind Build (or w/e it's called). I enjoy the idea of not having to worry (as much) about design, and instead just focus on content layout, etc. Tailwind is neat that way.
With that said though i'm not a fan of the .. "modern" design. I'll use it, i guess, but on text heavy pages ala Wikipedia or HackerNews, Tailwind looks like it would waste a lot of space. Though maybe i'm off base.
The point of this is to ask if theming has gotchas. Eg maybe themes work, but they're rarely ever supported well enough, leaving you with little gaps in design that cause problems. Thoughts?